Greek Slave

In the autumn of 1870 the Prussian army was besieging Paris, and Gérôme had taken refuge in London. His studio at Bougival, west of the city, now lay behind the German lines. That October two journalists, one English and one American, called at the empty studio. The American left with this canvas, still unfinished, saying he would deliver it to a lawyer. Instead it seems to have gone with him to Chicago. Years later it turned up in an antique shop there, where a Boston buyer named M. P. Kennard found it, and in 1887 another Bostonian, George Goddard, gave it to the museum. When Gérôme heard that a museum now owned the picture, he was flattered and offered to sign it. The unfinished state is plain to see. A nude young woman stands against a bare wall with one hand raised to her face, and around her the background is only roughly brushed in, the painter's construction lines still showing through.